Parallel Universe 004 - An alternate Gatchaman II universe by Cal Based on the works of Alara Rogers, Ennien Ashbrook and Kathleen Coventry All Gatchaman characters copyright Tatsunoko Productions Brace Hoffman and Ceiran Morag Maragorm (Kai) borrowed from Ennien Ashbrook Getting acquainted "Berg?" Zzzzzz.... "Berg! You asleep?" Zzzzzz *snore* Joe had spent the night with hir often enough to know that s/he never snored. "Okay, that's enough. You can stop fooling me. Get out of bed." "No." He shook the bundle of bedclothes that she'd rolled herself in. "C'mon. Doctor's waiting." "Sod off," said a voice muffled by blankets. "I'm sleeping." "The hell you are. Get up." "NO." "Remember what ISO said..." "Sod off." "I don't want to have to make you..." "Sod off." "C'mon... It's gonna be a beautiful day..." "I hate those tests. Bugger off." "But you're going to take them anyway. Aren't you?" he asked menacingly. "Maybe if you tie me up and gag me and throw me on the bus." He tried pulling the bedclothes off her. Instantly she straightened out and fastened onto the bed like a leech. He grabbed what he thought was her waist and tugged. Two bedposts left the floor; she was actually clinging to the bedsides with her hands, and when he tried to lift her, the whole bed lifted with her. He let go, and the bedposts hit the floor again with a solid thunk. "Oh, stop acting like a baby. You're over thirty, fergod- sakes." "I am *not* acting like a baby. I'm acting like an extremely reluctant guinea pig." In exchange for political amnesty and a new identity, the UN had made the following demands: that s/he should undergo whatever therapy was necessary to regain hir full memory and straighten out hir brain; that s/he should be unquestioningly loyal to ISO and the UN, and give them whatever help was necessary and required of hir to battle Galactor; that s/he should tolerate being watched and monitored for signs of defection or malfunction by whoever the UN chose to appoint, in this case the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman; and that s/he should cooperate with any other projects the ISO had in mind. Currently, a rather ambitious and prominent scientist in the field of molecular biology had been alerted to hir astounding powers of regeneration, and while ISO didn't broadcast it about that s/he was a mutant, they did show interest in the possibility of isolating the biological factor responsible for what was, after all, an amazingly fast cell regeneration process. Consequently, every Wednesday morning (Wednesday afternoon being her hour with "Stanley") s/he was driven to the Tokyo Medical Institute by hir guard and long-time acquaintance Joe Asakura to fill in endless IQ and aptitude tests, run on con- veyor-belt-type machines and do breathing tests to assess hir physical capacities and respiration rate, be weighed and measured to establish hir bone versus muscle ratio, have hir blood ana- lyzed and hir metabolism rate monitored, and be tossed and scrambled in antigrav capsules, subjected to different atmos- pheric pressures and poisoned with various chemicals to see what effect this would have on hir. Needless to say, s/he wasn't wild about this. But then again, s/he hadn't been wild about any of the terms set, accepting them mainly for Joe's sake. S/he had been rather apprehensive at the thought of a confrontation with the Ninja Team, but to hir relief, they were loyal enough to their organization to contain their private resentment, and mostly left hir alone. In fact, they too had been relieved when they met hir in Nambu's office; except for Jinpei (and, of course, Joe) they had been equally apprehensive, but the sight of the woman Galactor captain was less of a blow to their psyche than that of Berg Katze himself, even if they knew that these were actually the same person. Still, the team felt no great desire to be in hir presence, and when it appeared that Joe's bluntness had more effect on the mutant than Jun's attempts at tact, they gladly left hir to Joe's care and supervision. Officially, s/he was employed as a mecha designer and engineer on one of the ISO departments, working at home and going to the lab only to hand in the latest assignment or supervise the manufacture of some critically important compo- nent; by hir colleagues, s/he was regarded as coldly capable and efficient, and was highly respected, though not liked; no one knew hir true identity, and no one thought to ask. Angrily, she disentangled herself from the bedclothes, sat on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed and pushed her hair out of her sleep-swollen face. Joe tried to pick up the hairbrush from the small table at her bed, but she snatched it away and brushed her hair herself, glaring at him as she did so. She was obviously in no mood to be pacified. "They'll probably stick me full of needles again. Hell, I hate needles." "Hey, it'll only take a minute. And when they're through I'll drive you home and fix us some breakfast." "Whaddaya mean, I don't even get to eat before we go?" "They said on an empty stomach." "The swine. If they want to starve me and bleed me to death, why didn't they just execute me?" "Would you rather I shot you?" "Oh, don't tempt me." She drew the long nightshirt off over her head and opened the wardrobe door to grab a blouse and a set of underwear. Joe averted his eyes, more from habit than anything else. Having regained what s/he saw as hir liberty, s/he was not about to let other people tell hir what was proper and what wasn't, and he had given up trying to lecture hir long ago; in fact, hir uninhibited behaviour was starting to rub off on him, and he frequently surprised himself. They descended to the Condormobile and entered without a word, Katze staring straight ahead while Joe started the engine and drove off to the city. Joe glanced sideways at the human statue occupying the seat next to him in huffy silence. "Hey, it's not *my* fault. I don't have anything to do with these people." "Oh, you don't? Are you sure you didn't take this job just to get inside information on how to grow a new set of organs?" "That's a mean dig, babe." She shut up for the remainder of the journey. Joe wasn't angry; he knew she was being bitter rather than vindictive, and had known her too long, and become too intimately involved with her, to be embarrassed on account of his cyborg body. Heck, if I'm a metal man, she's a mutant, he thought to himself, and chuckled over her last remark; she had a bizarre and biting sense of humour that never failed to make him grin, even if he was the butt of it. It had attracted him even when they first met, before Change and the end of Galactor, it had helped him through those days of isolation and anguish when he was coming to terms with his new body, and it had encouraged him to tow her along when he returned to ISO to combat Galactor's resurgence. He hadn't regretted it. She presented her ISO identity card at the entrance. He did likewise. The cards were scanned for verification as they both filled in the customary security forms: name, address, time of entry, purpose of visit. After a brief wait their names were announced over the intercom: "Ms Hunt, Mr Asakura" and they were led by two security people, guns well-hidden under their suits, to another entrance inside the building with the notice: "Research Dept., No Entry". Here Joe was instructed when and where to pick her up - as far as the Medical Centre security personnel were concerned, he was her chauffeur - and Katze was led away by two scientists in lab coats. She turned her head for a wry parting smile before disappearing down the corridor, flanked by whitecoats. Joe made up his mind to buy her something on the way back. His current duties had raised his income some- what, and he knew there was some recently released graphics- enhancing software that she very badly wanted. Two hours later, waiting at the same door to have her delivered back into his hands, he saw that she was pale. Not that this was unusual; she had little in the way of natural pigment, and was susceptible to sunburn. But, although the dark corridor out of which she had just emerged might be partly responsible for the impression, she struck him as abnormally pale, standing like a tall white ghost between the black-suited security officers. Her face was composed as always, but Joe noticed that her nos- trils were slightly dilated. What had they done to her? He was worried, and quickly marched her to the outside entrance, requested her card, received it, almost lifted her down the steps and bundled her into the car, where she suddenly burst out: "Damn you, Nambu!!" Joe grinned. It was a phrase he often heard, though not always with the same vehemence. Nambu and Katze were matter and antimatter, and they took care to avoid each other. "Whatsamatter babe... They put you in the brain scrambler again?" "Worse." The theme of today's research had been X-rays. She had been injected with, and told to drink, large amounts of contrast fluid and had then been X-rayed from all possible angles. Some of the injections had been very painful, and she hadn't been sure of how harmless the fluid was, especially in the quantity she'd been given. She had been afraid she would Change under its influence, and had virtually had a heart attack when the pelvic X-rays had shown what seemed to be extensive scar tissue, but was in fact the dormant part of her procreative equipment. She'd had to pretend it was the result of a dodgy abortion fifteen years back. Various patches of scar tissue in the glottal and spinal area had also been noted, and she had attributed it to a bad fall she'd had in early childhood. All in all, a close shave, and she could only hope they would believe her. "Thank god I didn't Change," she said, supporting her forehead with one hand. "Then the game would really have been up." This had always been her greatest worry; she had signed on as a woman, and only Nambu, the Science Ninjas and a few assorted friends knew the truth. If her mutant nature became public, not only would it be a matter of days before a link was made and her criminal past dredged up, but she would also be designated as a useful research subject, to undergo even more painful and damag- ing tests than she already did; in any case, her life as she knew it would end. Joe had made light of it at first, thinking that only the gravest of injuries could initiate Change, until she had explained that it was a hormone-driven process that could be triggered by injury, poisoning, excessive pain, or even extreme emotional upset. Or any combination of the above. Joe had been shocked. "So what did they say?" "They didn't know what to make of it. Dammit, Nambu's just trying to sabotage my life behind the prez's back... He won't be happy until he sees me transferred to the vivisection lab. At least I can't say I haven't been warned." Hir creator had never tired of impressing on hir the danger of becoming an experimental subject, and s/he had seen enough experiments conducted on people in Galactor - and conducted some hirself - to know what it was like. "Oh well. I suppose I deserved it." Joe shrugged. He didn't seriously believe Nambu wanted to harm her, although he took to her the same ruthlessly scientific approach that he took to all people, including the Ninjas them- selves. No wonder he was still single. Nambu had a way of harming people without exactly intending to... As had a certain Doctor Rafael. "If anyone's to blame for this mess, it's Rafael. And you know him as well as I do - he's not a bad guy." Unlike Ken, Joe was charitable to his enemies, once they retracted their sting; presumably because he was of Galactor stock himself, and knew how easy it is to become ensnared in dirty business, and how hard to trace the crime to the true culprit. Once they had arrived at that stage in their relationship where it was necessary to settle past accounts, the murder of his parents was one of the first items he brought up; it turned out that Katze was not responsible after all, still being in training at the time. Even X wasn't personally responsible; it had been a routine matter and the woman who had done it was dead, along with her husband and two daughters. They had constituted one of the foster homes she had been placed in, and she had fond memories of them. He found he couldn't hate them after that, especially when he discovered he had known the younger of the two girls, and killed her. "That evens the score, doesn't it?" Katze had said with a grin that belied his feelings - he had been male at the time, and hiding with the anonymous group of people he vaguely designated as "friends". "I don't think Nambu's planning anything against you. I don't even think he hates you. He couldn't hate you if he tried, he's too bloodless. It's just his way of, er, getting acquainted." He felt this last sentence to be weak and an understatement, and hastened to tack on a corollary. "Remember how he tried to analyze you after he got the stuff from the guy who was trying to blackmail you? And how he was so glad he'd worked out what you were, it didn't even get through to him that he was going to be killed?" Memories flooded back. Katze had a photographic memory and could quote literally an article she had read ten or more years ago, but repeated mental programming had wiped whole parts of that memory, while repression had made other parts inaccess- ible. Still, this she remembered: Nambu captured and brought to their base, regretting his imminent end: "I've been doing nothing but research for the past month, avoiding contact with the outside world, sitting in my study and slaving away. It would be a shame to be killed before I can publish." "Ah well, Dr. Nambu. That's how it goes in the world of research." And Joe lying on the ground unconscious, after having been knocked out of Bird- style: "Shoot him in turns, one shot each." She covered her face with her hands and turned away, hoping Joe wouldn't notice. Concerned, he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Don't worry. I love you." "Oh, great. That's just what I need to hear right now." "Heck, what'd I say?" Her mood brightened after they had stopped at a restaurant and polished off a bowl of ramen each; that is, she changed from depressed to crabby, pouring out the usual complaints about the research methods. "So now I'll be tasting barium for the rest of the day. You'd think they'd know what they want to know by now." "I think they got so fond of you, they don't want to let you go." "Yes, you're probably right. You know what I think? They're Galactors," she made an angry gesture with one thin, long-fin- gered hand. "They've *got* to be. Who else would strap me to a bloody table before testing my reflexes?" "You kick hard, baby." "Who else would draw blood from me to check the rate of reple- nishment, and then throw it away and draw another pint for analyzing?" Two different lab assistants had been ordered to carry out the two tests without knowing about each other's assignment. She had been seriously annoyed by this particular feat of bureaucratic stupidity, and had gone on about it for hours afterwards. Joe remembered feeling sorry for the poor research assistants; onna-Katze in a bad temper was no joke, even when she restricted her aggression to the verbal level. She rolled her eyes expressively heavenwards. "Oh, Wednesday, my favourite. I wonder what treats next week will bring." To distract her attention, he told her a dirty joke he had heard from someone at the track. She smiled faintly. Well, it was a start. "You know what? Save it up for Stanley. You're always moaning over not finding anything to talk about." "Am I? We've got a lot to talk about. Pity half of it's clas- sified information and the other half I don't want him to know about." "The *other* half you don't want him to know about?" "Yeah, what's wrong with that?" "So it's okay for him to know that you murdered bunches of scientists, nuked whole cities, abducted little kids and killed literally thousands of innocent civilians, but you don't want him to know you were gang-raped as a kid in a back alley somewhere in Santo Domingo." "Right. That's embarrassing." "'Embarrassing'??!" "Well, it's not something I like to discuss with people." "Hey listen, he's a therapist. He's supposed to help you get over that sort of thing." "He's supposed to help me remember. That's all." "So how does he know it's working if you won't tell him any- thing?" "He doesn't have to know. I do. That's enough." She had spoken the last line with emphasis, fixing him with a hard stare. He shrugged again. She was tractable, but only up to a point; it would be years before she unbent completely, if ever. Some wounds, he knew, never heal. The hardware he carried inside proved it. They were nearing Katze's home, but he made a detour to pro- long the journey; he knew she would probably kick him out as soon as they arrived, and he had something planned. The shopping trip would have to wait, at least until tomorrow; he could see she wasn't in the mood right now, and she would be less so in the afternoon. She didn't notice; her mind was not on the road. "Joe." "Yeah." "If anyone found out I was a mutant, what would you do?" "If anyone found out I was a cyborg, what would *you* do?" "Joe, I'm serious. You're not wanted for terrorism." "Well, what would you expect me to do?" This was a trick he had picked up from Stanley: to bounce back the question, instead of ending the interaction by simply answering it. This usually resulted in a clarification he would have missed otherwise. "Call me a coward, but I'd rather die than face trial. If they'd even be kind enough to give me a fair trial." "Why wouldn't they?" "I'm not human, remember?" "You look pretty human to me." "Stop avoiding the question. You know what I mean." "Well, like I said, what would you expect me to do?" "You're not being much of a help, Asakura." She sighed a deep and shuddering sigh and leaned her chin on one hand, gazing abstractedly at nothing. This, he knew, was usually the preamble to a confession. He kept his ears pricked, while outwardly occupied with driving. "You know, I'm getting so tired of running. If I get caught again, I don't want to run anymore. I just want to die." "Who's gonna kill you?" he quipped. "Nobody. That's the problem." Was she developing suicidal tendencies? Maybe he ought to warn Stanley. "Joe. Promise me something. If Anderson or whoever gets wind of who I am, promise me you'll shoot me." "No way! You know I can't do that." "Please." "Why me, anyway? Why not take an overdose of something?" "It probably wouldn't work. Don't forget I'm a long-time drug abuser, I have a high tolerance for barbiturates. And I suppose I could take a gun and blast my own brains out, but I'm scared I'd either lose my nerve and chicken out or do it wrong and just regenerate. Either way, I need someone to take care of it." "You need someone to take care of *you*," he said, reaching up to give her a pat on the shoulder. "Oh, I know a couple of people who'd be more than glad to take care of me. Nambu for one, and then of course there's your good buddy Ken." It was the old problem again. "Hey, look. Nobody wants to hurt you. I like you, Anderson needs you, ISO couldn't do without you. Even Nambu's glad to have you around. In a sense. No one wants to get rid of you, or anything. You're worth too much." "It's just the same thing all over again, isn't it? I'm too valuable to kill, I'm too precious to die. If I wasn't, I'd be dead in a ditch by next morning." She bent her head, little lines of grief forming around her mouth and eyes that made her look old and weary. He didn't like to see her like that; it made his throat tighten. He lifted one hand off the wheel to stroke her cheek. She turned her head away. "So why did you sign up with ISO? I thought you had your life pretty much sorted out." "I didn't want to burden you with yet another secret." It was true, and he knew it. Unable to touch her face, he stroked her neck with his fingers, burying them in the thick silky hair that was tied in a bundle at the nape. She remained perfectly still, her face turned to the window; then, as he undid the bundle and teased the strands apart with his fingers, she inclined towards him and relaxed, her eyes half-closed. Underly- ing their arguments and bickering was a deep mutual tenderness, that had only intensified after Change. He drew up at the side of the deserted road, and switched off the engine. "What'd you do that for? Where are we, anyway?" "Between Stan, the lab and the drawing board, I thought you might like a break." She smiled to herself. She had a fairly accurate notion of what kind of break Joe intended, but decided she didn't mind; in fact, it would probably soothe her nerves and do her good. Joe was no master of tact or psychology, but from time to time he managed to say or do exactly the right thing to make her feel happy. Sure enough, his hand was innocently slipping down over one breast. "Hey." He glanced to the side; she was facing him with lowered lids and that slightly unsettling smile of hers. Judging the mood to be right, he undid his seat belt, reached over to undo hers, and turned to sit on her lap, which almost brought their faces to the same level. Her arms locked around him as automatically as the metal restraints on a Galactor torture chair. While rubbing noses with her, he unobtrusively undid the buttons of her blouse. Normally, her outfit would consist of a belted pair of jeans and a long-sleeved, often turtle-necked T- shirt that would cause her no discomfort if she Changed, but today she happened to be wearing a blouse and skirt; well, it would make easier what he had in mind. They were steadily prog- ressing to the passionate stage, she tangling her hands in his hair as she kissed him (and tugging it quite painfully) while he gradually worked the blouse off over her shoulders. She paused to appraise him, her eyebrows slightly raised. "C'mon babe. You know you want to." "What, sitting like this?" He heaved himself over the seats to the back of the car, motioning her to follow. She did so. Moments later, the car was rocking gently to the sounds of shuffling, moaning and the occasional sharp cry. The Hunt residence was located on the fringe of Tokyo, in an area of great natural beauty. Conveniently close to the capital though it was, it was quite empty; she shared it only with a Shinto nun and an American couple who were abroad for most of the time; they had never met, and considering their occupations and the distance between their homes, it was unlikely they ever would. Hers was a square brick house of medium size - too small for a family, but quite spacious for one person and a lot of computer equipment - surrounded by a wider square concrete fence, within which was constructed a pretty little Japanese garden with some rocks and a large stump to sit on. The fence had been constructed under ISO orders, just as the house itself, a derelict cottage when she had bought the property, had been revamped to meet ISO standards and now had reinforced walls, bullet-proof windows and heavy-duty doors; the stump had been a tall ginkgo which the previous owner had cut down because its roots were beginning to crumble the house's foundation. He had wanted to remove the stump as well, but she had persuaded him to leave it there, saying it didn't bother her and it would make a great bird-table. "Bird-table?" Joe had said afterwards. "I didn't know you were a birdwatcher." "Fuck the birds. I need a seat." The house was not in the middle of the fence's square, but clung to one side of it, so that the front door was visible and even easily accessible from the road, provided the steel gate was open. When it was, (and in the daytime, it generally was,) it was invisible, as were two small cameras and a light source built into the fence. A mailbox hung on the inner side of the fence, which was decorated and camouflaged inside and outside with creepers, brambles and ivy. Behind the house, small conifers stood like pillars in the garden, or huddled in clumps like twisted bushes; the whole scene was like a pen-and-ink drawing, and Joe wondered who exactly had been responsible for its design. Katze? She certainly seemed to have developed a love for plants and Nature, being as hard to draw away, these days, from seed catalogues as she was from specialized electronics stores selling the latest development in pcmcia cards. He grinned to himself; once she took interest in something, she gave it her all. Total commitment. Not that the garden didn't serve a purpose; it made a calming environment, and her nerves could do with some calming. Contrary to his expectations, she didn't kick him out as soon as they arrived; instead she took him to the bedroom for a replay, twisting and straining against him to draw out the words that were her lifeblood. "I love you." "Say it again." "I love you." "Again." "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you." "All right, that's enough." She rolled him onto his back and buried her face in his chest. Still panting heavily from exer- tion, he grinned again as he stroked her hair. She was like this; subdued one moment, snapping the next. There was no gauging her feelings, they ran too deep; he had to go by what glimpses she showed him. To the team, she was cold, distant and rational, a far cry from the hysterical megalomaniac they remembered; to Joe she had displayed the whole gamut of her frames of mind, ranging from deeply philosophical to superficially materialistic, from devoted and submissive to selfish and imperious, from intensely depressed to mindlessly happy, and from brilliantly genial to just plain zany. Jun, who'd had a basic grounding in psychology as part of her paramedic training, proposed that she might be a case of Multiple Personality Syndrome, a phenomenon frequently found in children heavily abused from an early age; Katze had thereupon turned on Jun and called her an ignorant interfering busybody and other terms less suitable for publication, making it quite clear that even if she was the product of two bodies, she still had one single, indivisible mind; she also suggested Jun leave psychiatric analysis to the experts. This effectively nipped in the bud any attempt at reconciliation that Jun might have wanted to make. Joe grinned widely at the memory. There was something about Jun and the woman captain that didn't mix. "I love you," he said, quite gratuitously. "Hey, didn't ask for that one." "It's a freebie. Consider it a gift." "If you really loved me you'd wipe your feet before you come in. I work, you know? I've got other things to do besides clean up after you." "I'm sorry." "And leaving crumbs and coffee stains all over the table when you've eaten." "Hey, I said I'm sorry." "*And* wiping your filthy hands on my towel when you've been messing with that car of yours *and* leaving stacks of dirty plates for me in the kitchen *and* getting the sink all messed up when you shave *and*..." Once she was started, there was no stopping her. Joe let her finish while his breathing subsided, noting the important points and forgetting the rest. She was a child, basically, and needed to be humoured from time to time. As he had expected, she was up and cutting sandwiches in the kitchen not much later, all anger dissipated. He sneaked up from behind to put his arms round her waist, standing on tiptoe to kiss the back of her neck. "Lemme go. You've just had nookies." "Can't help it babe. The more I get, the more I want." He restrained himself, however; she did have work to do, and she still had to see Stanley. "Want me to take you?" "No. I'll go alone." "Are you sure? How are you going to get back?" "Same's I came. By car." "Sure you don't want me to drive?" "No. I'll be fine." "Are you absolutely sure?" "Look, I'm not going to go bonkers or anything. I can drive." And even if she did go bonkers, Joe knew, Stanley had all the help and medicine needed to subdue her and a place to put her up for the night. Stanley knew how to deal with her traumas, and she was grudgingly grateful to him for it. "So when do we see each other again?" Not tonight, he knew. Possibly not next morning, either. It usually took her some time to recover from Stanley's sessions, and she preferred to do it alone. "I'll call you, okay?" They both had answering machines, Joe having acquired his when he found she tended to become hysterical if she rang him and no one answered. Even a deep-voiced "Please leave your name, number and message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible" was preferable to nothing at all. Personally, he liked to hear the familiar harsh voice requesting him in a neutral tone to leave his own name and number; he felt he was seeing the public side to her, and he found it quite convincing. They ate in silence, Joe washed up the plates (just to show that he *could* listen) and they exchanged goodbye kisses in front of the small garage that was built onto the house, Katze giving him a rib-cracking hug. She combed his hair back with her fingers before seeing him to his car, and waved as he departed. He waved back. When alone, they could freely indulge in their friendship like this; in the presence of ISO staff and the Ninja Team, they were curt and formal with each other. His frequent off-duty visits to the mutant caused his teammates to raise the occasional eyebrow, but as he explained, a Science Ninja is always on duty, and s/he needed a lot of watching. "Must be a real headache," Jinpei sympathized. "Oh, she's okay once you get to know her." Ken frowned; he still stubbornly referred to hir in the mascu- line, as if to denude hir of any endearing traits. Ryu didn't refer to hir at all if it could be avoided. He still remembered how s/he had threatened to kill his family and caused a power outage when his father was sick unto death, and his attitude was one of total rejection. Jun, likewise, saw hir as a threat to loved ones, and had forbidden Jinpei (who had secretly been rather disappointed at this) to hold more communication with the mutant than strictly necessary. Ken had already lost his loved one; his attitude was one of undiluted hatred. Nambu had decided to give the team a treat: a large, prestigious amusement park had recently opened and they were to test the various rides for safety. It had already been open for a few weeks, but a roller coaster-type ride called the Great White had jammed somewhere on the rails in upside-down position and, giving way to gravity, plummeted to the ground, killing those inside as effectively as a Galactor offensive. It seemed the roller coaster had been marked as potentially dangerous by the people who had finished constructing it, but had been put into operation anyway because it was the major draw, and the park's owners couldn't afford the loss of profit if it were prematurely shut down. "Why does this remind me of `Jaws'?" Katze had sighed; Joe, not knowing what "Jaws" was, merely shrugged in response. "Between the repairs and the damage claims, they've probably lost more money than if they'd got the construction right the first time round." The machine and the rails had then been repaired with such an eye to safety that the Great White slammed to a standstill each time the structure received a jolt, which was all the time. This was no solution either, and the whole project had somehow gotten turned over to some ISO personnel not currently employed in weightier projects, including a certain Ms Hunt, of whom it was known that she was as short-tempered as she was tall, and had a perfect insight into the laws of physics, hydraulics and aerody- namics. Katze had corrected the designs to make an extra buck between jobs and then forgotten all about it. It had been put back into operation, but the public was still suspicious, and so the Ninja Team were to get their stomachs turned, their innards scrambled, their solar plexuses rammed and their brains sloshed about in their craniums testing it and the other high-risk attractions, and of course to have a good time generally. "Great!" Jinpei hollered. Ken and Ryu shook their heads. "Not really. Guess who's coming with us." With all the team packed in the back of the Condor Attacker, Joe drew up before the concrete fence and honked. The tall blonde woman that came out at his summons regarded them very coldly, then strode up to the car without a word. She was wearing a snappy, but inconspicuous outfit and a small handbag with a long strap running over her shoulder. Joe opened the door to her from the inside and she entered and fastened the seat belt, without looking at him and still without saying a word. Apparently she was as thrilled at this outing as the rest of them. "Doesn't this remind you of a certain vacation to Huntwall?" Jinpei remarked to Ryu, keeping his voice down so Ken wouldn't hear. Ken heard anyway. "Maybe we'd better split up at the entrance," Joe suggested, seeing Ken's clenched fists and whitened knuckles. "I'll stay with Katze, and we'll meet again outside at eight or so." Katze didn't say anything. She had remained silent throughout the ride, twisting the strap of her bag around her fingers. The car stopped before the park's neon-lit entrance. Jinpei immediately bounded out, followed by Ken and Jun. Ryu looked back inquiringly. Joe had put a hand on the arm of the mutant, whose stare was as icy as before. "Will you be all right?" "We'll be fine. See you at eight." Ignoring Katze, Ryu made a saluting gesture at Joe and lum- bered after the others, pausing to look back again at the ticket booth. Joe grinned and waved him on. He disappeared through the admission gate. "Great." Katze opened the bag, fished out a packet of ciga- rettes and a lighter, cranked down the window half-way and lit one. "I thought you said you were gonna quit smoking." "I'm down from two packets a day to one packet a week. Stop complaining." She inhaled deeply. Smoke filtered out through her nostrils. They were quivering slightly. "Joe, please, do me a favour. Park the car. Drive it away to someplace. I need a change of scene." "Right-o." On the extensive parking grounds, he picked a square that was near the exit, so he wouldn't have any diffi- culties in getting out. The bumpers protruded over the square's outline at either end. Katze stuck one hand through the window to tap the ash off her cigarette. "Are you left-handed?" "I'm ambidextrous. You know that." Silence. "Well, actually, I'm right-handed. Not that it makes a difference." "So." "What do we do now." "Exactly." "I rather like it here. Nice and quiet." They could hear, in the distance, the loud and pulsing music from the amusement park. "But I suppose you want to join your friends." "It's not a question of wanting to. I have to." "You can leave me here if you want. I won't run away or any- thing. I've got a book," she pulled a paperback from her bag. It was something on quantum physics and alternate universes. "It'll pass the time. I won't be bored." "You want to stay in the car?" "Wasn't that the whole idea?" "How do you mean?" "Considering the fact that you're to keep an eye on me all the time, and there's only five tickets, I suppose you lock me into the car, have a good time, and come back reeling drunk with your mates to gloat over me." "What makes you think there's only five tickets?" "Well, I didn't get one." Joe reached inside his back pocket for his wallet, opened it, and pulled out two tickets. "Nambu said we were to treat you as one of the team." "That must have cost him considerable effort." "Why else would he have ordered you to come along?" "I don't know. To humiliate me, or something." "Oh, boy." Her mistrust of human nature knew no bounds. It was depressing. He leaned his head against her shoulder. "So what do *you* think?" "I thought he wanted us to go out together, as a group, to get acquainted, or something. To break the ice. I mean, you're ISO now, aren't you?" "So are a lot of people. Doesn't mean they go out cavorting with the Science Ninja Team." "Because they don't know us. You do." "So? You're safe from me. I signed the damned contract, didn't I?" Joe sighed. "That's *not* what I meant." "I know what you mean. Nambu thinks that once we've all been tossed around in the Salad Spinner together, Ken won't want to strangle me any more, Jun won't want to force-feed me her home cooking, Ryu'll give me a big hug and Jinpei'll start calling me onechan; in which case, by the way, his days will be numbered. Nambu, what a naive git you are." She blew out a narrow stream of smoke and watched it drift out through the half-open window. "Well no, really, in a sense... Yes." Silence. "It's getting dark, isn't it?" "I wouldn't say dark... It's half past six now, right?" Katze twisted her wrist to consult her heavy duty digital watch-with-lots-of-extra-functions. "Yes. 18:36 to be precise." "We've got time." "I'd rather just stay here if it's all the same to you." He knelt on his seat for extra height and kissed her on the mouth. "Joe, not *here*." "Wasn't *going* to!" he protested. A group of revellers passed the car, laughing loudly and raucously. "Great. They probably saw us." "Who gives a fuck what they think?" "I don't like to attract attention." Rule number one of the Masked Assassins, that. Never attract attention. The leader of Galactor, however, was practically designed to attract attention. Also blows, bombs, bullets, anything that might be tossed hir way. What conflicting demands life had made on hir. "I love you." "Well, that's a consolation." Another silence. "So.. what was Stanley like?" "His usual understanding self." "Was the woman with him again, whatzername..." "Aikiko. Yes." "Is that her real name?" "Izumoto Aikiko-san. Would you like her credentials, too?" "No, s'arright... I believe you. So, what's Stanley's real name?" "Don't know, don't want to." "Why not?" "I don't know his real name, he doesn't know mine - fair exchange, wouldn't you say?" "Umm. Why call him Stanley, anyway?" "Because it's a nice, comforting name to call a person." "Ah." "Why don't I call you George?" "Because you'd rather call me 'brainless idiot.'" "Exactly. Very good." They both chuckled. "If it makes you feel any better, I think Nambu's a brainless idiot too." "Better not let him hear that." "Couldn't care if he did." "It's obvious *you* never got blasted with mind-warping rays." "Why, did you?" "I *told* you." "Hey, I don't have the perfect memory," he remonstrated. "Mine isn't exactly functioning perfectly, either. But at least I remember the important things." They were back on the subject of memory. "Did you remember anything about the woman?" "What woman?" "The one with the green eyes. The one you told me about at Rafael's, with the neutrino beams." "I can't recall any woman, still less one with green eyes and neutrino beams." "Aw c'mon. You didn't want to say what her name was." "I must have forgotten." "She saved your life. Also, she was a hacker." "Sounds interesting." It had been one of hir first confessions to Joe, hir first and only almost-love affair with a woman almost crazier than s/he was. Joe remembered the woman very clearly; not Japanese, but a fearsome enemy. Thank heavens she had been too freaky and anarch- ist to crave world domination; ISO wouldn't have stood a chance against her. At that time Katze had been male, though incognito. Joe remembered wondering exactly how s/he had meant it: as an implicit request for forgiveness, a gesture of trust, a covert invitation? "So why do you tell me about her?" "Because you'd understand." Understand what? There had already been a current of sympathy between them. Sex had been out of the question until after Change, when it became the natural next step. It had surprised him how much she clung to him, and how great was the power he wielded over her. He made a difference. He liked that, it filled him with paternal benevolence. "Because you'd understand." Understand what, exactly? As far as he understood, the point had been that s/he'd missed the chance of a lifetime by not expressing what s/he felt. What had s/he been feeling at the time that s/he couldn't express? What was it s/he wanted him to know? "I love you," he said. It was the universal panacea. As long as he loved her, she would follow him to the end of the world. And beyond. She finished the cigarette, and extinguished it in his ashtray. "Whaddaya think, should we go out and enjoy ourselves?" "Hmmm... What would you recommend?" "Well, they've started the Great White working again..." "What, that thing that fell off the rails a couple of months ago?" Her hand made a motion as if flipping a pancake. "The one that landed on its back?" "Yep. They want us to test it." "Oh, great. Now I see it. Nice move, Nambu. A fitting revenge for the train scheme." "You chicken or what? They said it was safe now." She smiled evilly; she knew something he didn't. "Tell you what. Let's try it. If we die, we die together." "*Told* you not to be so greedy!" Jun scolded Jinpei, who had taken such big bites of his cotton candy that he was choking on it. Flakes of it stuck to his cheeks. Ineffectually she tried wiping them with a tissue, but they were so sticky that the tissue stuck to them, too. "The Beaver Express should take care of that," Ken advised. Ryu, his mouth full of hotdog, nodded. "So, what have we had... the Sea Serpent, seems to be alright. The Sideswiper, okay. The fence around it should be wider though. The Revolution: bit wobbly, but it'll do. The Salad Spinner: whoever invented that thing should be taken away and shot, but apart from that I can't see anything wrong with it. The Triple Tumble... Anyone for the Triple Tumble?" Ryu and Jinpei both shook their heads. "I thought not. Definitely not something to try on a full stomach. Jun?" "Oh, Ken..." There was nothing she would like more than to sit at his side in a fairground attraction, but she would have preferred the Tunnel of Love rather than this revolving egg- shaped version of a Ferris wheel, which combined three different centrifugal forces into a sensation guaranteed to bring up the breakfast. She wasn't sure whether she would be able to control her stomach, much less remain feminine and ladylike in the grasp of that monstrosity. "Uh, maybe you should save that for last," Ryu proposed. "I mean, we're here so we might as well have fun, right? Who's coming to the slot machines with me?" "Mmbl grmp!" Jinpei responded. "No you're not," Jun said sternly. "Not looking like that. Ken, could you take him on the Beaver Express first? I'll be waiting for you at the exit." "Um," Ken said. The Beaver Express was a series of jointed metal "logs" precipitated off a waterfall. He had no wish to get soaking wet. Neither had Jun, of course. "I'll take him," Ryu nobly offered. Jun gave him a look of gratitude. "After I finish this, okay? And I want a beer before I go. Ken, could you..?" An expression of disapproval crossed Ken's face, but he left anyway and came back with two cans. On his return he saw Ryu and Jinpei both devouring Elephant's Ears, apple sauce dripping on the ground. Jun was also balancing one in her hands, biting into it delicately to prevent its filling running down her chin. "Here's yours. Eat it, it's really good. Did you get what I wanted? ...Great. Thanks." "I thought you were going to get Jinpei rinsed?" "Well, if I'm to get wet too I might as well get sticky first," Ryu apologized. "You know how I am, I'm always hungry. I can't help it. Want one?" He proffered one of the cans to Ken, who shook his head with pursed lips. Ken didn't approve of alcohol consumption. Ryu sighed. He missed Joe. "I wonder where Joe's got off to," he said mournfully, popping the can open. "You said he stayed behind with Ka--.. with the mutant," Ken said. "And I haven't seen him yet, so logic suggests he's still in the car." He bit into his Elephant's Ear. Ryu was right. It was good. If a little too sugary. "I can't believe this!" Jun exclaimed. "Safety first, yes, but you can go too far. Why doesn't he just lock Katze up and leave him behind? He doesn't have to watch him *all* the time." "Nambu's orders were that the mutant should stay with us," Ken reminded her glumly. "On no account were we to leave him alone. Would you take someone like that into a park full of innocent people?" "Why let him come in the first place?" Jinpei asked, finishing off his meal and licking his fingers. "I don't know. Nambu said it was a test. Apparently he had something to do with the plans for some of the park's machinery. Anyway, Nambu said it might improve his attitude. Or something to that effect." "Nothing could improve his attitude! He's a dangerous criminal and that's all," Jun declared. Ryu nodded to second her. "Aagh!" Jinpei cried out. "Does that mean these rides are all Galactor traps? We've been tricked, aniki!" "Hardly. All he did was run a check on the final construction. You don't think ISO would let him start designing things on his own, do you? They've seen what he can do. They'll keep an eye on him." Jinpei let out a sigh of relief. "Still, it's too bad for Joe." "Poor old Joe, sacrificing himself like that," Jun sighed. "I wonder how he must be feeling... stuck in the car with that... that..." Ken laid an arm round her shoulders in a gesture of commiseration, almost causing her to swoon. "Bored," Jinpei stated flatly. "He's missing all the fun." Ryu, who had been drinking with his head tipped back, almost choked when he spotted something in the distance. "I don't think so! Look over there!" Coming out of the Great White were two figures reeling and clutching each other, one of which looked suspiciously like Joe. The other, a woman, was harder to identify because her hair had fallen across her face, but she stood a full head taller than Joe and carried a handbag with a long strap. The team rushed over. "Warning!" the woman gasped. "Danger of imminent projectile vomiting. If you don't want to be showered with half-digested cotton candy, beat it." She collapsed to a sitting position, still hanging onto Joe. "I'm outta here!" Jinpei squealed, but Jun caught him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him back. Ken folded his arms and gazed down on Katze sternly. She looked up with dazed eyes, taking some time to focus, then said: "Hell, you look like Sosai X." Not giving him time to reply, she immediately launched into a booming (and quite accurate) imitation of Sosai X delivering a lecture, then collapsed in helpless giggles. Joe shot an apolo- getic glance at Ken and made a bottoms-up gesture, to indicate that she'd had more than just cotton candy. He waited for the giggling to subside and helped her up. Ken switched his glare to Joe. "Hey, it was a dare..." "Yeah and you lost," Katze hiccuped, hanging limply over him. "I could hear you screaming." "Shuddup. Anyways, I thought she'd be bored... I'd better take her back to the car, see y'all later..." The team stared as he led her away. She seemed oblivious to their presence as she conversed with Joe, the sound of their voices receding into the distance. "You remind me of this woman I used to know... She was always getting me into trouble." "Yes, I think I remember you talking about her", Joe prompted. "You said her name was...?" "Nice try, Asakura." "I'd like an explanation, Joe." Ken was leaning on the side of the racing car Joe was polish- ing. His voice was dangerously quiet. "So? She got drunk. What's so bad about that?" "'She'?" "Like it or not, she's female now. For the time being, any- way." Joe squeezed some more polish onto his rag and continued rubbing. The rag squeaked on the bumper. "For the time being?" "Until she changes back. She changes every year. Whatsamatter, weren't you listening to Nambu?" "And if he changed back, how would that affect you?" "Not much, I think." Ken shifted his position. "Does he... she have a drinking problem?" "She drinks, she smokes... Everything." "You know her pretty well, don't you?" "You could say that." Silence. More squeaking. "Joe." "Yes." "Exactly how long have you known her?" Joe opted for the truth. "A long time." "Before you came back to us?" "Yes." "I see." Ken turned and strode away. Joe sighed inwardly. He knew that he had just been stamped a traitor. He half wished Ken would have come up to him and slugged him as he always did. She was asleep. He had come in very quietly so as not to wake her. As a sign of trust, she had given him the house key, so that he could enter at will. Normally, he rang. This time, he came in without any noise because he expected she would still be in bed; she'd pulled an all-nighter yesterday finishing the design for a special kind of turbine the ISO was making, and sending the final blueprint to the lab's mainframe by modem in five encoded files. She had been working on it for a few weeks, scribbling calcula- tions and feeding them into the computer to display a revolving model on the screen. Joe had been impressed. "Piece o' cake really," Katze said modestly. "Takes time is all." Now she was asleep. She was not curled up as usual; her head was still visible, face upwards, and one elbow was clamping down the blanket, the hand attached to it lying close to her chin. He carefully sat himself on the side of the bed to examine her. She was not beautiful, or even pretty in the ordinary sense; her face was unpleasantly sharp, and always had been. She looked, if anything, inherently aggressive, although she could with a slight change of expression transform into a temptress or an innocent lamb. The mask, hiding all but the mouth and chin, had always given her - or him - a false impassiveness, belied by hir own behaviour; now that her face was completely visible, it showed him the full range of her expressions, and they were as varied as her moods. At the present moment, it displayed a serenity that verged on the angelic. Her cheekbones were carved in marble. Swathes of golden hair lay about her face, golden eyebrows curved to converge at the top of the long, narrow nose, golden lashes fringed the closed eyelids. Her lips were slightly parted, displaying a row of perfect white teeth; even without artificial colouring, they seemed red against the pallor of her skin. He knew she wasn't generally such a quiet sleeper; he wondered what she had taken to sedate herself. Or was she simply very, very tired? He reached out to touch the hand resting on the blanket, then held himself back. She hadn't slept so well for a long time, especially not when alone. Maybe Stanley's efforts were beginning to pay off. Lovingly, he contemplated the hand; it was thin, almost spidery, and the same size as his own. She was not merely tall: for all her slim and slender build, she was proportionally large, and could easily cover both his eyes with one hand if she wanted to. Her proportions were confusing; she was fragile and at the same time larger than life, like a dinosaur's skeleton. As a woman, she reminded him of a man, just as the man-side of her reminded him of a woman. S/he was androgynous either way. It intrigued him. He decided he preferred hir over any full-chested, wide-eyed sixteen-year-old in tight jeans and garish make-up hanging out in snackbars. Not that s/he couldn't disguise hirself as one if she wanted to; age seemed to have no grip on hir yet. He wondered what she thought of him, and if she scrutinized him in the same way when he was asleep. She sighed and opened her eyes, showing pale, luminous blue- grey irises. "Joe?" "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." Her lips curved in a smile. "S'okay... I'm glad to see you." "I love you." "I love you too." The words thrilled him; it was the first time she had expli- citly declared her feelings on the subject. He kissed her on the forehead. It was cold. He covered it with a hand to warm it. "How'd it go?" "Awful. Didn't get to sleep until after seven this morning. Stuff arrived okay though." "You must be tired." "I feel shagged out." "Want me to stay with you?" "Mmmm." He removed any articles of clothing that might constrict his circulation and slid under the covers and into her embrace. She rolled over on her side and enveloped him in limbs, kissing and nibbling his neck and jawline. In the past, he had erroneously taken this as an invitation to sex; it had taken him some time to discover that this was the nurturing side to her, the mother that licks clean its young. Between that and the snapping and snarling she occasionally resorted to during nightmares, she sometimes seemed more animal than human. He didn't mind. He liked it that way. Going pleasantly limp in her arms, he said: "Had a visitor today." "Oy." "Ken. Wasn't pleased." "Oh dear." "Sod Ken, though." "What'd Jun say?" "Dunno. Didn't see her." "I love you." It was the second time she'd said it. That must have been some medication she took, Joe thought. Or maybe it was just fatigue. It wasn't often that she let down her guard like this. "Wanna marry me?" "You're kidding." "Why?" "I'm too old for you." "Says who?" "Says anyone with a brain." Joe wondered if the anonymous woman s/he had slept with before had been closer to hir in age. Probably. He knew the woman had been killed. By Galactors. For anti-Galactor activities. He knew that Katze had been unwittingly responsible for her death. Another trauma to add to the long string. Katze had been deeply attached to her and he'd chanced on hir crying once, remembering. Hir mind had been wiped, but not thoroughly, it seemed; bits and pieces of memory surfaced from time to time, then submerged again. It was up to Stanley and his assistants to put all the pieces together again, and fix them in place. "Joe. Will you forgive me?" "What for?" "Hurting you." "Sure." Well, that was one thing she remembered better than he did. For him, all memories of the hateful enemy washed away against the beating of a lonely heart under his cheek. Only the fragile and insubstantial body in his arms was real; all else was illu- sion. The leader of Galactor had never existed. "And what about me?" "What about you?" "I hit you once or twice." "Yes, you did." "Even wanted to kill you." "Instead, you killed Finger. For which my undying gratitude." He grinned. "Anything for you babe." A most agreeable warmth was developing between the two of them. Joe even felt himself becoming drowsy, and he had been quite awake when he arrived. "Brace is coming to fix us dinner tonight." "Brace is the big guy, right?" He had never met any of Katze's friends, but Brace came to her house from time to time to cook and clean when she was busy. Purportedly he had been a high- ranking member of her personal escort in her Galactor days, though he didn't behave like a typical Galactor. He was a better cook than Katze, who generally concocted a vaguely edible mess out of rice and vegs or tossed something into the microwave. But then again, all the cooking experience she'd had came from survival trips with fellow-Assassin trainees, where the aim was indeed to concoct an edible mess from assorted dehydrated food- stuffs, never mind the gastronomic quality. Brace, too, had shared her bed a number of times, but not on a regular basis, and Joe had been given to understand that Brace was no serious competition for him. He kissed her on the nose. "Please... No." "Don't worry. I was only trying to be nice." "That's sweet of you. I love you." The third time. Surely the Earth ought to open up now, and trumpets to blow from the heavens. None of this happened. Instead, she sighed deeply and contentedly, tucked his head comfortably in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, closed her eyes again and fell into a semi-doze. She loved Joe, it was true, but not in a carnal sense; if she liked to sleep with him, it was because the comforting presence of a friendly body prevented her from having nightmares. This, too, had started with the mysterious woman who had single- handedly foiled both ISO and Galactor and paid for it with her life; it was not Katze's own habit. If anything, the mutant disliked physical contact, going out of hir way to avoid it, and saw hir biological urges as troublesome distractions that s/he gave in to from time to time to get them out of hir system. He often wondered if she wasn't simply humouring him. Her bad temper and thorough knowledge of techniques suggested a maturity and self-assertion that she didn't in fact have; she acquiesced in whatever he asked of her, and most times only an exceptionally sour look warned him that he was going too far. The unnamed woman, on the other hand, had been the perfect partner, neither demanding intercourse nor offering it. Slightly too perfect, in fact... For, as irony would have it, the mutant had fallen in love with her. The affair had been doomed from the start, of course. Her overlord and creator would never have allowed it to happen. For hir to be his willing slave, s/he needed an incentive; s/he relied on a drive fuelled by discontent. Like himself, she would instantly relinquish all hate and malice once she had an object on which to pin her sentiments. Currently, her heart was pinned on him and, though he felt uncomfortable admitting it, vice versa. But X was not completely vanquished yet; the alien still had a hold over her. Joe had teased her about her loss of position once while she was in the final stage of dishwashing: "Don't you miss having kitchen slaves to do this sort of thing for you?" "Oh yes, and having to get up at four every bloody morning and being responsible for a bunch of morons and getting my mind wiped and my friends shot and seeing all my efforts go up in smoke time after time; yes, I miss it terribly." She smacked down the plate she had been drying. "Four in the morning?" "Make no mistake, conquering the world is mainly back-breaking hard work." "*Four* in the *morning*?" "Well, sometimes four-thirty. But now you see why I was a bit pissed off from time to time." "Then why do it?" "Why eat? Why breathe?" She wiped the glasses one by one and put them on their appointed shelf in the cupboard. "It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. Besides, I didn't have much of a choice." "You could have run away." "I did. All the time." "I didn't see you do it." "Because I was too brainwashed by then. Oh, and another thing I really, really miss: getting yelled at time after time and blamed for every fuck-up from the beginning of the universe until now. Plus, having the crap beaten out of me by your psychotic friend at regular intervals. Yes, truly a life of bliss." "I'm sorry." "Oh, it's okay. You were only doing your job. And I, god knows, was doing mine." It puzzled him how little sense of control s/he had over hir own life. With the power s/he'd had at hir fingertips... "Why didn't you just destroy him?" "He would probably have killed me first, he always knew what I was thinking. But, quite frankly, the thought never occurred to me." "Why not?" Downcast, she threw the dishcloth over a chair and started rinsing out the sink. The water gurgled down the drain. "I can't explain." She tried to explain after one of Stanley's sessions. "It's like... How would you feel if you had no friends?" "No friends?" "None whatsoever. And an awful lot of enemies." "I'd try to make some friends, I guess." "And what if you knew you couldn't?" "I'd, uhh, pull out." "Where would you go?" "I dunno... There's always somewhere to go, isn't there?" She sighed. "I'm explaining this the wrong way. Let me try from another angle. Why do you miss your parents?" This question caught him slightly unprepared. He had never asked himself why he missed his parents. They were his parents, and that was all there was to it. "Because they were my parents." "Which means...?" "They loved me. They took care of me." "But they needn't have. And if they hadn't, you wouldn't realize it until you were old enough to leave them." "If they hated me, I would have known it." "Would you? Did they ever hit you, for instance?" "I dunno... I guess they did. But hey, man, that's normal. Little kids get into trouble, they have to be punished. They have to learn things." "Like what?" "Like, uhh, reading, writing... Behaving like civilized human beings..." She was certainly making him stretch his brain. "In that case, I see you've still got a lot of punishment coming," she chuckled. "But, frankly, doesn't that mean your behaviour is motivated by fear of punishment? In other words, if I'm carrying loads of stuff and you hold the door open for me, you're not doing it because you know I couldn't open it myself under the circumstances, but because you're afraid someone will hit you if you don't?" "No!" he protested. "I'd open it because that would be the right thing to do. What I learned as a kid was to do the right thing. If I got hit it was because, I dunno, I wasn't doing the right thing or something. But I don't, like, give in to anyone who hits me. If I did I'd be a Galactor by now." "And I would've been ISO three years ago." "No you wouldn't. You didn't have what it takes." "`What it takes'?" "To do the right thing." "And who decides what that is?" "Nobody does. Right is right." "How can you tell what's right and what isn't?" "I dunno, it's just something you feel." "Are you saying ethics are a matter of instinct?" "Uhhh..." "And what if you feel something's right and someone tells you it's wrong? Or the other way round?" At this point, his brain, which had been galloping for some time to keep up, disengaged. "Oh, never mind. We're drifting off the subject, anyway. We were talking about emotional dependence, and now we're discussing morals." "We are?" he said dazedly. She cuffed him. He pulled himself together. "Okay, I challenge you to tell me in exactly one sentence why you went along with the whole Black Hole operation - even after X told us he was gonna destroy the Earth anyway!" "I can't. I just had to pretend I hadn't heard." "But you did hear it." "Yes." "And you remembered." "Against all odds, yes." "So why go along with something that amounts to suicide?" "Says our kamikaze cyborg... Because not going along with it would have equally amounted to suicide." "You mean he would have killed you." "Even if he hadn't. He was all I had. I couldn't go against him. I couldn't even hate him." "But *why* not?" "Because to hate him would have been to hate myself. He was part of me. He was my *life*," she said helplessly. "You can't hate something that's got under your skin." Joe was woken from a pleasant slumber by a burring sound alarmingly reminiscent of the Autoswan's engine, and the squeal of a car's brakes. "Uh-oh. Court-martial." He slipped out of Katze's embrace, switched on the monitor connected to the hidden camera, and quickly dressed. Awakened by the activity, she raised herself on one elbow and yawned. "What's going on?" "I think Ken wants a word with me. I left a message saying I wouldn't be there for the workout. Didn't take them long to figure out where I was." "Oh. I thought it was Brace." She sagged back under the covers, then sat bolt upright. "The Science Ninja Team are here? I'm not wearing anything!!" "Yes you are, you're wearing a nightie." "With the Science Ninja Team around, I should be wearing at least a hardsuit. Hold them at bay while I change." She pre- cipitated herself towards the shower, dashing back to pull a towel from the tall wardrobe. She always forgot to hang a clean towel in the shower. She was frantically untangling her hair when Joe went down to answer the door. Ken had come by car, taking Ryu with him; Jun and Jinpei were both carrying helmets. The little group stared at him accusingly. "Joe," Ken said coolly. "What a surprise." "Well, who'd you expect?" "Katze, actually. Unless you've started living here too, of course." "She's asleep. She had to work late last night." "Is that what he did last night? Work?" "Check it out with G-Town if you don't believe me." "Why didn't you turn up for training?" "I wanted to see if she was finished. I also wanted to know what time to pick her up tomorrow." There was a reason why Katze had absolutely wanted to download the final results this morning: tomorrow was Wednesday. She hadn't been looking forward to it. "So why didn't you call him?" "You can't make voice calls to someone who's transmitting files. She only has one line. Anyway she needs her sleep, I didn't want to bother her until she woke up." "How considerate of you. You really spare no effort to please the mutant, do you?" "Hey, and why did you follow me? *You* could've called. I have an answering machine now, you know?" "Yes, full of very interesting messages. I took the liberty of listening to them, to get a clue to your present location. My, what loving and passionate creatures these mutants are. Joe, are you out of your mind???" "You broke into my place??!!" "I had to!! Joe, do you realize what he's doing to you?? He's leading you straight back to Galactor!!!" "What do you know about it, you bunch of--" They abruptly fell still as the woman Galactor captain came down the stairs, looking phenomenally tall and elegant in jacket and trousers. Her hair hung loose on her shoulders; she hadn't had time to braid it or tie it in pigtails. Joe scraped his throat and escaped to the living room. Slowly and impressively she crossed her arms, looking down on Ken. "Well, if it isn't Gatchaman. And what was *that* all about?" Ken, likewise, crossed his arms. "Weren't you asleep?" "Well yes, I *was*." "So sorry to disturb you. Might we take Joe away with us? He's needed for some training." "Oh, I would *never* obstruct a Science Ninja in the course of duty." "Wouldn't you? Doesn't look like it!" Katze's eyes blazed, but she kept her mouth clamped tightly shut. Her nails dug into the sleeves of her jacket. "You just can't stop playing tricks, can you? The only thing that still surprises me is Joe falling for it!! I can't believe he would be so incredibly stupid as to trust you!" Her chest was heaving, but she still refused to speak. "But then I suppose Joe goes brainless before anything with tits." "I'm not even going to answer that." "Too right. Saves you a lot of embarrassment. Anyway, those messages you left him were clear enough." Spurts of flame darted from her eyes and nostrils. "Just because *you're* a tight-assed geek with a daddy complex..." "I'm what??!" "You heard me!!" She added some further specifications to this description, and Jun clapped her hands over Jinpei's ears. He struggled to free them. "You killed my parents and you killed Joe's and you think we can just forget about that!!" "I did neither and may I remind you Red Impulse took the plunge himself and you should be so lucky to have *had* any!!!" "Uhh, Ken," Ryu attempted, "Let's just pick up Joe and leave..." "Damn you, Katze, you're going to pay for this!!!" "Make my day, you gormless little runt!!! "That's it!! BIRDRANG!!!" "Hey, boss," a big burly man with a squeaky voice interrupted, "You didn't say we'd be having guests." "Oh, hi, Brace. Well, I wasn't expecting them, but I don't think they'll be staying for dinner. Want me to help you carry the groceries?" "That's okay, I'll manage. Fetching outfit, boss." "Uh, yeah, I hoped you'd like it. Where'd you park the car?" "Who in god's name *is* this?" Ken gaped, still holding up his Birdrang in one hand. "This is Brace Hoffman, friend, former bodyguard and part-time cook. Brace, say hi to the Science Ninja Team." Brace squeakily said hi and excused himself. "'Friend'?" Ken frowned. "'Cook'?" Ryu joined in. "Is he a Galactor?" Jun wanted to know. "Well yes, he used to be, but he was pressed into service. However, you'll be glad to hear he did damage some Galactor property. Though not seriously enough to take it out of business altogether." Katze smiled most sweetly, with a cold glint in either eye. Brace appeared again round the corner with two bulky shopping bags, and Joe peeked out from the living room. "Any dead bodies yet?" "All this, just for one meal?" Katze asked, tapping one of the bags. "I thought I'd do your shopping for the coming week, seeing as how you'd be busy." "Oh Brace, you are a darling. Here, let me take the bags." "They're too heavy for you, boss," he protested. "Give!!" "Oh, okay..." "Brace never likes to admit he wants help," she explained, batting an eye at the team. "Well, are you going to come in or stay out?" "Uhhh..." said Ken. "Take your time to make up your mind," she cooed. "I'll be *right* back." "`Too heavy'," she muttered on her way to the kitchen, bent double by the weight of the bags she was dragging. "Yeah, like hell they are." "Watch out," Joe advised, following her. "The left one's got eggs in it." "Remind me to throw one at you. Why are these ninja geeks following me around?" "Following *me* around, actually. They didn't like the way we carried on in the park." "And so they decided to save you from my cunning plans. As if I was the one who started it... Nambu knew this was going to happen, didn't he?" "I dunno... I don't think so. Maybe." "Damn you, Nambu." She emptied out the bags and ranged the contents on the table. "So I take it you won't be staying for dinner tonight." "Damn well am. And they can go to fucking hell." She embraced him tightly. No words came, however. Her guard was up again. "They'll kick you out if you go on like that." "They'll kick me out anyway once they find out I'm a cyborg. It's only a matter of time." "Life is hard for freaks like us..." "You stay here. I'll tell them to clear out." "No, I'll come with you. And don't fight. I don't want a fight." On returning to the front door they saw Ryu in deep conversa- tion with Brace, and the other three standing together, looking slightly at a loss. "Coffee, anyone?" Katze's immediate and foolproof solution to this kind of social embarrassment was always to offer coffee. "No thanks, uh, we should leave..." "Yes, thank you so much," Jun chimed in. "Most kind of you..." "Ryu, c'mon... Joe, I'll want to talk to you tonight." "Could you make that tomorrow?" "Whenever. Ryu!" Ryu and Brace finished exchanging addresses and telephone numbers and said goodbye. The Science Ninjas got on and in their respective vehicles and departed. "Cheest," Brace said. "You can say that again. Nice timing, Brace." "Sorry 'bout that," Joe apologized to both. "It's okay, I shouldn't have lost my self-control. Well, kitchen's clean and table's laid out, so..." Brace saluted, Galactor-style. "Leave it to me, boss." He marched into the house and disappeared to the kitchen. "Well." "Yeah." "This should take an hour or so." "Yeah." "Want to sit outside? Weather's fine." "There's only one chair." "Sit on my knees." "They're bony. They're not comfortable." "Use a pillow." "Anyway it's chilly." "It won't be if we huddle together. I give off a lot of heat." "No you don't." "Yes I do. It's my mutant metabolism." "Yeah sure, and my parts give off heat radiation." "Now there's an idea for Rafael. Build a little toaster oven in your tum." "No way man. I've been messed with enough." "I love you." Fourth time. It might have been contrition, though. That night, she had a crisis. They were sprawled on the sofa together, watching tv, and Joe had gone to the kitchen for a beer. When he came back, she lay stretched out stiffly on the sofa, with bluish lips and that familiar wide-eyed, empty look. He knelt at her head. "It's all - right--" she managed to get out. "I'm - fine." "Where's your pills?" "No I - won't - be needing any--" She spoke in a ghostly voice, never taking her eyes off the ceiling. When s/he had still been under X's control, the psi-link between them had served to drain off the worst excesses of emotion, always leaving hir capable of functioning. Now, the link severed, she stood alone, and the memories rising back to the surface were sometimes more than she could handle. Moreover, vestiges of her programming were still active in her mind, triggered by Stanley's regression therapy to repress the awakening memories. The first sign of such a memory repression programme trying to reassert itself was a wide-eyed, frozen stare; then she would sometimes start screaming and thrashing about, her convulsions reflecting the battle taking place inside. At such times she could be totally oblivious to the world around her, and a danger to herself and others. Joe remem- bered her last crisis, coming a month ago after a very traumatic session. He'd had to alert Stanley and call an ambulance, and then keep her subdued until the orderlies showed up. It had been like a scene from "Total Recall", with four men - including himself - holding her down while a fifth administered injection after injection until she finally collapsed. A syringe needle had broken off in her arm during the fight, necessitating some impromptu surgery. He hadn't told the team anything about it, deciding that they were biased enough against her already. But if she could still think and speak coherently, it wasn't too bad. He decided to stay at her house until next morning, and thanked Providence that she had no neighbours. "Do you want me to carry you up to bed?" "No... Just bring me a blanket." "You'll be uncomfortable." He made to pick her up. "Don't touch me..." He stood back, folding his arms. In a very small voice, she repeated fearfully: "I hate needles... I hate needles..." He knelt by her side and waited until she had recovered enough for him to cajole her up the stairs, then tucked her into bed, after which she told him he could leave her now. "Are you sure you'll be all right?" She smiled wanly. "I'm fine." "I'm going downstairs now. If you want me, I'll be down in the living room." She showed her teeth in a ghastly smile. "Being deliberately ambiguous, Asakura?" "If you need me, I'll be down in the living room." "Still ambiguous." "If, whatever, I'll be in the living room." "Okay. Thanks, Joe." He was reassured. At least she still had her sense of humour. Ryu was surprised to hear his bracelet beeping, and was even more surprised when the caller turned out to be Joe. "Ryu... Are you busy?" "No, I'm not doing anything. Why?" "Could you come straight over to the Medical Centre?" "Why, has there been some kind of a Galactor attack? Should I warn Ken?" "For the love of Allah, leave Ken out of it. Katze's gone berserk." "WHAT!!" "Hansen just called me. Seems they gave her some experimental injection and she went wild. Slammed a table into someone's face and kicked the set apart. They're having trouble controlling her, and I don't know if I can handle this by myself." "But... Okay, don't worry. I'll be there in half an hour." There was no need for them to show any identity cards; their streaking through the air in Birdstyle was enough to convince the security guards. Quickly they were escorted to the scene of the attack. At the door of room B101, the whitecoat who had led them paused. "We put her in here," he told them. "She's calmed down now, but we don't know when it might start again." Joe looked at Ryu. "If you don't want to go in..." "I'll stay outside. Call me if you need me." Joe stepped into a twilit room with only a table, a sink and a rack of instruments and syringes. Strapped to a kind of tilted upright bed on casters was a tightly straitjacketed, but perfect- ly sane-looking Katze. "What happened to you?" "Can't you tell? I've been shrink-wrapped." He sighed with relief. He had expected her in a very different state. "So why did they tie you to that, er..." He couldn't make out exactly what it was, in this darkened room. Presumably it had been darkened to help her calm down. "This is a special vertical model to prevent bedsores in the chronically ill. They used it because they were afraid I was going to have a heart attack, so they wanted to keep me in an upright position. As for what happened: they injected me with something that didn't agree with me, and next thing I knew I'd broken a lot of expensive machinery, as well as someone's jaw." "Oh, no..." "Then I fainted." "And how are you now?" "Still dizzy. You know, I almost Changed." "You might have had a seizure." "Maybe I did. Everything hurts." He reached up to touch her face, and leaned his head against her chest. She couldn't embrace him, because her arms were tightly strapped to her sides. "I love you." "Joe, this thing's on wheels. It's rolling backwards." He parked the bed gainst the wall, stepped on the board that her feet rested on, pulled himself up by her shoulders and gave her a long kiss. "You can let go now. Someone might look in to see what's hap- pening." "Will you be all right?" "I think so... Can you drive me home? I don't think they'll be wanting to keep me here." "What about Stanley?" "I'll call him when I get home to say I can't come." "Won't you get in trouble?" "Not half as much as for what I've done here." "C'mon... They know it wasn't your fault, don't they?" "I can only hope so. I didn't tell them about my attacks." "You didn't?" "I didn't think I'd get one here. Stanley knows, though. I can ask him to explain the whole thing." "And if he won't, I will." "He's a decent sort. He'll get me off the hook." "I guess this means the end of the experiments, huh?" "Lord, I only hope so." "Look, I have to get back to Ryu and tell him it was a false alarm. I'll be right back." "Ryu is here??" "Right outside the door." "Christ, that's embarrassing." "No it's not. Just hold on a bit and I'll get you out of the shrink-wrap and drive you home. Do you think you could wait just a bit?" "I can wait all day. I'm not going anywhere." "That's my good girl. Just half a sec." Ryu was not the sort of person to listen at doors, but in this case he had been too concerned and curious not to. He was puzzled. Gentleness was not an overriding trait in Joe's charac- ter, yet here he was manifesting it to his worst enemy. Ryu had been informed, of course, that something was going on between the two, but it still puzzled him; and Katze's behaviour puzzled him even more. He brought up the subject after inviting Joe to a bar for a couple of beers. "He sounded... helpless." "She is. This is a difficult period for her." "I still can't get over how you've changed." "Well, like I said, once you get to know her..." "You shouldn't let yourself be fooled, Joe. That's not a woman, that's Berg Katze." "Well - heh heh - it *is* a woman now. But I know what you mean. He was male when I met him, and I got along with him fine." "You got along with him fine??" "Like I said, once you get to know her... or him..." "And Red Impulse? The death of your parents? The V2 plan, Operation Black Hole... They don't mean anything to you any more? Sheesh, Joe, he tried to *kill* you!" "I know, I know." Joe stared moodily over his mug. No good trying to explain what had happened in the lapse of time between his apparent death and his first reappearance, he would be giving too much away. His mind went back to what Katze had said about hir mentor. "Maybe you're right, maybe I ought to hate her. But I can't. She's part of me. You can't hate something that's got under your skin."